Edward Snowden Joins Twitter With 13-Year-Old Advertising Slogan
"Can you hear me now?"
Edward Snowden is on Twitter — and he’s already verfied. His first tweet is a 13-year-old Verizon slogan:
Along with his title as Director of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, his bio wryly reads: “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.”
He’s also following just one account: @NSAGov.
The people at The Intercept — the news organization created to process and report on the information in the reems of documents leaked by Snowden — are happy to see his 140-characters-or-less thoughts.
The Intercept also reports in its Snowden-joins-Twitter scoop that the @Snowden handle “had been taken by someone who hadn’t used it in three years. So Twitter was contacted, and they agreed to turn it over to Snowden himself.”
Journalist and founding Intercept editor Glenn Greenwald welcomed Snowden to Twitter today:
On his Star Talk podcast, celebrity astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson asked Snowden why he didn’t have a Twitter account, which got the ball rolling:
Snowden’s second tweet was to Tyson, thanking him for the welcome. He also made a joke out of Monday’s news that scientists have discovered water on Mars. Maybe he can seek asylum there someday:
Snowden lives in Russia. The country’s government granted him asylum after he was charged with three felonies in the United States over his leaking of the NSA documents, which outline government spying on private citizens.
